The Early Days and Late Nights
by Not all that glitters
Summary: The story of the days before the golden trio, the beginnings of what would come to be the war against Voldemort. All told from the perspective of one really confused drop-in.
1. Chapter 1

**** All recognizable characters are not mine. I am simply playing with them. I hereby disclaim any and all ownership of the property of J.K Rowling.

**The end:**

I was horrified. I didn't belong here, I don't belong here. I never did. Lilly did. James did. Sirius did. Heck, even Peter, Snape and Regulus did. I did not-do not- and I never will. And now, surveying the destruction around me, I realize that I'm too late. I did far too much, and not even close to enough.

**The Beginning:**

It all started when I found myself in a compartment on a train. I had been travelling through Europe via train, so I was not surprised to find myself on a train. I was surprised to find that I was much smaller than I remembered, and the train was not the one I remembered boarding. My luggage was missing, but there was a trunk and some suitcases with my name on them in the overhead rack. Or my initials at least. There were two other kids in the compartment with me; a redheaded girl and a dark-haired boy.

"Oh" the girl noted, "You're awake. I hope you don't mind us sitting here. I'm Lilly Evans, and this is Severus Snape. "

"I don't mind. It's nice to meet you. I'm Ri Devlin." I answered on autopilot. I was confused. Lilly Evans was a name that could occur outside of the ever-famous Harry Potter series, but Severus Snape? That was a bit much for coincidence. Add the fact that they both seemed to be around eleven or twelve years old...I ignored my mind's frantic whirling in an effort to be polite.

Severus frowned. "Ri is not much of a name."

Lilly shot a glare at him. "That was rude, Sev", she chastised.

I shrugged. "It's short for Rigel, but no one ever calls me that."

We were interrupted by snickering coming from right outside the door. "Brilliant, Sirius. I can't wait 'till she notices!" This statement was followed by an articulate screech. "Sirius Black! You reverse this right now, you mangy cur!" The noises outside our compartment ceased, until an older girl with blonde hair and horrific makeup threw the door open. "If you happen to see either my despicable cousin, or that damnable Potter, please inform me." she stated coldly. "Narcissa Black." She clipped off, and stormed to the next compartment.

And so the nail was placed with a dreadful doom into the poor, decrepit coffin that housed my deceased sanity. We all exchanged glances. I shrugged in seeming non-caring. In truth I was rather running through a quick list of what I knew of my travelling companions. Lilly frowned. "What a troublesome pair of boys." she said dismissively.

"They'll probably end up in Griffindor, being that obnoxious." Snape observed idly.

In an effort to allow myself to try and gain some semblance of reasoning back into my head I questioned, "Griffindor?"

"Muggleborn are you?" Snape said blandly.

I really, really, really wanted to say "obviously" in a very dry tone, but restrained myself. "I was raised by them anyhow." I said instead. Some part of me was extraordinarily upset at that perfect missed opportunity.

Lilly shot another disproving glance at Snape. "Don't mind him, he's just nervous. I'm a Muggleborn too. Griffindor is one of the Hogwarts houses. There are four in total, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin are the other ones. Sev here wants to be in Slytherin because he values slyness. I think he would do really well in Ravenclaw too, because he already knows so much about the wizarding world. His mother's a witch." Lilly kept going on, while poor Snape looked as if he did not want his entire life being laid bare before me. To be honest, I didn't either.

Lilly kept up a running discourse without much prodding, thank goodne-Merlin. It was Merlin here, if I remembered correctly. When we were nearing the school, I hesitantly opened the trunk with my initials on it. I was rather relieved to find robes, books, parchment, quills, and various other miscellany. I threw on my robes, and got of the train, joining the rest of the first years. I felt rather clever because I had deduced this from the lack of house colors on my robes. (Funnily enough, I am not clever, not in the slightest)

My first view of Hogwarts made this entire crazy journey seem real-real in a way that simply talking to characters wasn't. First off, the castle was breathtaking, and though it seemed familiar, it was not the same. I kept my eyes riveted on it through the whole boat ride. I tried to get into a boat with Severus and Lilly, but ended up in one with a boy who introduced himself as Remus Lupin, and another, Robert Diggle. The other girl in the boat stiffly introduced herself as Airdrie Greengrass.

All the other first years seemed nervous and fidgety. I was nervous and half-wondering if I had finally lost my marbles-in a world that was eerily like Harry Potter. After introducing herself, and giving instructions, McGonagall led us through the great hall, amidst many gasps at the ceiling and the resident ghosts. I was far too nervous to focus on those, so I kept my eyes on my feet and shuffled along with the rest of the group. The hat was introduced, the Sorting ceremony begun, and I couldn't tell you a thing that was going on. Names were called, houses proclaimed, and I listened with half an ear. Until I was startled from my daze by my name. "Devlin, Rigel."

I forced myself to the stool, and gingerly sat. I felt the hat placed on my head. "Ohhhhh, well, isn't this interesting." It chuckled. I was thinking something along the disjointed lines of _hi hat, please don't kick me out. Or sort me into Slytherin. On second thought maybe you should kick me out. I don't belong here. And not Hufflepuff- I'm sure they're lovely people, but all that kindness and goodness might kill me. And not Ravenclaw-I hate studying. And Not Griffindor because I'm a coward. Really, I'm like the cowardly lion. I can't even kill a spider- my brother has to do it for me. Of gosh- Emrys, he's not here. I miss him already; he would know what to do, and he would bluntly tell me if I was nutters, which I'm sure I am..._

"You could be in Hufflepuff; you are loyal, but perhaps a bit to shy to be kind. You are only cunning when called, so not Slytherin. Ravenclaw might be good for you, or are foolishly brave, I see here."

"I'm not brave! I run at the first sign of confrontation! And...and Griffindor is so overrated-everyone knows that it's the "Good house. Really even Ravenclaw is better. I like books, and wisdom is highly vaunted in my mind..."

"I think I know exactly where to put you then."

I resigned myself to Ravenclaw. At least I like the house colors, I consoled myself. My musings died a quick death when the hat happily (with a bit too much self-satisfied glee for my liking) shouted out "GRIFFINDOR!"

The Griffindor table cheered, and I nearly turned and ran out of the Hall. The whole noisy lot of them was terrifying. I was unfortunately pulled into the teeming mass as the rest of the sorting continued. I felt a sudden kinship with the boy I had marked as Peter Pettigrew. No wonder he attached himself to James, Sirius and Remus; all those Griffindor people were downright terrifying. Loud, brash overbearing, and far to touchy-feely and noble for my decidedly anti-social tastes. Lilly came right after me. "Griffindor! I'm so excited!" she gushed. By the time the last student was sorted, I was firmly squashed between Caradoc, Anders, and Evans, Lilly. When the feast was over-most of which I sat through and managed a decent robot impersonation during- we were lead to our dorms.

I was sharing the red-and-gold room with Lilly, a Marlene McKinnon, an Emmaline Vance and an Alice Carver. We all introduced ourselves, changed into pajamas, and hastily fell asleep. There were classes the next day, after all. That thought struck fear into my nearly asleep self. Classes. Teachers. School-with magic. Magic that I wasn't sure I could do. Did I even have a wand? Magic didn't exist. Before this weirdness, I was working on a bachelor's degree in chemistry. In science. Magic was not science. Stupid magic that apparently exists but shouldn't. It probably dragged me here. Which begged the question-why me? Could the magic choose to throw me in this twilight zone? Did magic have a coherent feeling? Why the heck did I care? I had bigger problems-like classes. With that, I shut off my mind, and went to sleep.

I woke far too early the next morning. Zombie-like I shuffled into clean robes, pulled my black hair into a ponytail, threw a headband in, and managed to find the right foot for each shoe. I then opened my luggage, and pulled out ink, parchment, quills, a pile of textbooks, and a shabby box with Olivander's seal on the outside. Crap. I did have a wand.

I hesitantly pulled it out, and felt it. The tag on the box informed me that I was the owner of a larch and phoenix feather wand, 10 3/4" and slightly springy. It was comfortably cool in my hand, but I didn't feel anything like a jolt or some sense that it belonged to me. It was disappointing, but I figured I could get it to work. Maybe. Hopefully. Or not, and they would send me home because I wasn't magical.

Problem was I had no home here. I had no family, no friends, no nothing. It was utterly devastating, and I nearly fell down and just cried. I had never been alone like this before, and hadn't contemplated my plight fully the night before. Beyond that, I knew that most, if not all of my dorm mates would die in the coming war. It was a profoundly disturbing and saddening thought. I must have looked a bit horrible, because Emmaline asked if I was all right. I mechanically nodded, and might have made some small, affirmative noise.

I managed to get through breakfast, somehow, despite my fears. Our first class was Charms. Charms was surprisingly fun, if I thought about it more like how can I get this object to do what I want it to do, despite what physics may try to tell me? Not that I was any good, mind you. If anything, the feather I was trying to levitate sunk. Yeah, that was depressing. Lilly got the spell on her third try, a Ravenclaw on his fifth, Remus on his eighth, and James and Sirius on their tenth. By the end of class, most of the Ravenclaws had the spell down. I think I did accidental reverse alchemy, and turned my feather to lead. It didn't go anywhere

After Charms, we had History of Magic with the Slytherins. It wasn't half bad, through professor Binns did make me want to sleep. And there was the whole I-have-never-used-a-quill problem. My notes ended up looking more like Rorschach tests than notes. Mentally, I added that to my growing list of things to practice. My list included, so far, magic in general (really, why the heck didn't it work?!), avoiding the hexes in the hallways ( by the first day, I was already glad I had taken some self defense classes, and had a natural feel for doge ball. Dodge-spell was so much more evil.), exploring the castle (there were secret passages, the room of requirement-awesome!), hitting the library and reading every magical theory book I could get my hands on (and books on magic in general-I was so behind everyone, even though I mentally much older, and it made me feel exceedingly stupid and inept), and now learning how to use a quill and ink.

As soon as classes were over, I gathered my stuff, walked into the library and browsed the shelves. Despite the fact that some of the books seemed much more interesting than magical theory (Medieval Monsters of Muggle Fame, anyone?), I remained undeterred, and brought out the two most promising volumes. I looked at the books and realized just how much I was going to miss the internet. Scratch that, I would kill for a Wizard version of Google. Or sell my soul to the bidder that offered that-I wasn't picky. It took all of a minute to realize that I would go so far to kiss Voldemort for Google and a ballpoint pen.

It wasn't bad reading, mostly because I convinced myself that it wasn't school related-which was the same thing that made me actually do my homework. Except Charms. I was not using my non-magic around the books-they were far too precious. I must have been in there past dinner, because by the time I trudged back to my bed, my dorm mates were already in pajamas. "Where were you, Rigel?"Lilly asked.

"In the library-I'm having trouble with the _Wingardium Leviosa_ charm-thought I might read some magical theory to see where I was wrong." Lilly's eyes took on a dangerous sparkle. "I'll help with the charm, if you study with me tomorrow." she offered. To be frank, I was terrified of what she would do if I said no. I nodded, dumbly.

Alice looked on. "May I join?"

"Of course" Lilly answered. We talked a bit more; Emmaline offered to join the study group to make sure we all got to dinner on time "Did you even notice that you were supposed to be eating?" Marlene shook her mane of dark hair. "I suppose I'll go too-just to make sure that I'm not sleeping through anything important." Lilly shot her a mortified glance, and we all laughed.

That's when it really hit me. I was making friends with these people-these people who I knew intimate details about their lives, families and deaths. It made me feel like a cheater, like I had stolen something valuable, or seen something I should have waited for. That's also when I chose to protect my friends, because, when it came down to it, I had no one else.

I happily climbed into bed that night, just to quickly jump out of it. There was something furry under my sheets, and it did not belong there. The other girls had already pulled their curtains, so I was facing mysterious fuzzy beast all on my own. I carefully pulled back the covers, aiming my (useless) wand at it, and fervently hoping that it wasn't a mutated hairy spider. It wasn't-thank Merlin-it was a silver fox. Staring up at me with an expression of disgust, the fox gave off the distinct impression that it would not be moving-come hell, high water, or the freaking zombie apocalypse. I frowned at it, but crawled to the open side of the bed, and placed pillows between me and mysterious grumpy fox. I did not want to get bitten.

Just days ago I would have been seriously weirded out by such an occurrence, but now I just accepted it and weird and magical and got over it. It didn't take me long to semi-adapt at all. I still felt physically sick when I thought about my family, friends and career that had been ripped away to a place where I couldn't even touch them, but I was adapting, for better or for worse.

****Read, Review, let me know how to improve, if I should upload more, what I'm missing...all that stuff. Characterization ideas would be lovely too!


	2. Chapter 2

Again, I don't own this-I'm only exploring/borrowing!

Sorry for the shortness, lateness, ect. ,but the next chapter is longer- I promise. Any ideas any of you have for pranks, book titles, lessons, people, mischief in general, I'd love to hear. Thank you for reading and enjoy.

***********2

The first prank that the to-be Marauders pulled happened on the first Friday. A bunch of Slytherin second-years came into breakfast with glaring neon hair. James, who was sitting across from Lilly, snickered, and semi-discretely congratulated Sirius on a prank well done. Lilly looked confused as to why they would do that, and I took one look at a neon green afro and nearly lost it. The poor girl, who always had shiny straight hair, today looked like some kind of radioactive chia pet had taken up residence on her head. It was pretty dang funny. Sirius, who was across from me, caught my muffled mirth and winked. I turned to the transfiguration book in front of me, a smirk still in place. Lilly elbowed me in the ribs. Hard. "That's not funny, Ri. It's mean."

"It may be," I admitted, "but I have three words for you." I said, motioning to a dejected afro-girl. "Mutant. Hedge. Bush." Lilly frowned still, but I could see her imagining it, and a slight upturning at the corners of her mouth. "Or" I added, hearing Marlene burst into laughter at the idea, "I could wax eloquent and call it a paragon of hedge-bush-iness, that all such as ourselves should seek to emulate. Much like the great hairstyles of pre-revolution France, we should see who can come up with the most outlandish." Lilly, who understood the reference, actually gave a small smile, while Emmaline gave a wicked grin. "I daresay, my dear ladies, then a simple changing of style and vivid color will not do. Oh no, it will not do at all. To become masters of the art, we must also have the poise and grace to pull it off. Our dear Slytherin sisters make a rather poor showing, don't you think? We should show them how it's done!" With that, she tapped Alice's head with her wand. Alice's nice chestnut hair turned a garish orange with neon purple stars. She then proceeded to tap each of our heads, until the first year griffindor girls looked like a flock of miscolored parrots.

"Now show them how it's done, girls." Marlene said in the most prim manner she could muster. The marauders, seated across from us watched first in amusement, then in confused horror at our hairstyles. I accidentally caught Sirius' eye and almost winked, but I was too confused by the cotton candy blue that had replaced my native black hair. He took one look at my stunned face and burst out laughing. The other marauders joined him, as did most of the great hall. Emmaline and Marlene continued to eat as though nothing had happened. Lilly, Alice and I quickly burried our mortification and pretended that nothing had happened. I was pretty sure that my face was now a brilliant crimson, I was blushing so hard.

By the end of the day, most of Griffindor was sporting crazy hair colors. And so started the long tradition of pranking in Hogwarts. The pranks were at first the work of James and Sirius alone, then James, Sirius and Remus, and by Halloween, the Marauders were officially a group. James really was an egotistical prick, Sirius really was a charmer, Remus was really smart, and Peter was a kind of tag-along mascot. And together they were the Marauders. I have no idea when they found out that Remus was a werewolf, but thinking of that brought me to another topic entirely.

Anamagi. Humans transforming into animals. It sounded pretty dang sweet, and I figured that if James Potter and crew could do it by fourth year, I could start learning in first. And so I did. Sort of. I had a lot of reading to do before trying.

My dorm mates and I, namely Lilly, took a disliking to James and Sirius. They were ever-wary of pranks, and with good reason. James and Sirius saw Lilly, Emmaline and I as uptight and rule-abiding. It was a mostly correct statement. I was not rule-abiding in the slightest. The number of times in the first week of school that Marlene and I nearly got caught after curfew was rather large. Alice was exempt from pranking on account of her being so sweet.

Marlene and I were the ones who explored the school after curfew. We nearly got caught by Filtch quite a few times in the first two weeks; until we learned how to better avoid Mrs. Norris. Emmaline was just glad that we were curious enough to go exploring, because she wouldn't. Lilly, though, disproved immensely. Strangely, I found myself empathizing with her. I was much like her in regards to an extreme dislike of rule breaking. Due to the fact that I was not actually eleven, I didn't care much for curfew and a myriad of other minor rules. It was prideful and stupid of me, but that's how it was. Mentally, I felt myself and adult, and I was above such rules.

I kept that attitude until I got caught, reprimanded, and sentenced to detention. It was miserable. I swore to myself that it would never happen again. As it was it took Lilly a week or so to get over my transgression. She really could be a wet blanket-that girl.


End file.
